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Future Jungle – Insights and Outlooks with Arc88

Ay, welcome back, we hope you had a sub-filled weekend. If you remember, today’s post will be following up on our introduction to Future Jungle last week. Way back then, we introduced the sound we hesitantly dubbed ‘Future Jungle’ and had a sick jungle mix from local dj Archive. We also promised some inside info from someone behind the mixing board, and boy did we deliver.

Arc88 sat down with us last week and really educated the crew on what Future Jungle is, where it came from and where it’s going. In the Q & A you can expect to gain an insight of the emergence of 140 Jungle, its furtherance by artists pushing the sound and a general understanding of its place in the dance music horizon – all from a producer, who we think speaks for the genre.

Arc88 Interview:

BWS) Could you briefly explain a bit about yourself, where you’re from and a bit of backstory of your dj/production career until this point?

Arc88) I’ve been producing for a few years now, I’ve fucked about with loads of different genres but decided to stick with this because its a style I’ve dug for years.

The first 140 Jungle bit I made was a bootleg. (probably better if i don’t say what) After that I made ‘A Feeling’ (which is coming out on Terrain) that gained some interest which inspired me to carry on. With that I built “2 Many” which turned out to be my first release on Terrain which I’m still getting mad feedback internationally so I’m grateful for that.

BWS) Rad. So is 140 Jungle a new style to you? or simply Jungle slowed down?

Arc88) This sound is a bit of a mix really, I try and keep it as legitimate sounding as possible because I want someone to listen to it and assume it was made in 1990, but with new production tools and software. You don’t get that same gritty true sound they did back then, so the production is going to sound a fair bit cleaner.

What I do really, is infuse a very early Hardcore sound with a later style Jungle drum track, as opposed to the earlier Hardcore jungle sound where the drums would be fairly minimal. (I use pitch changing drum rolls and fills quite in the style of Shy Fx, Bass Master Warriors, Potential Bad Boy etc.)

It is slowed down to a certain degree when you consider Jungle music, but early Jungle was around 150 bpm anyway and hardcore/acid house started at 135 – 140 bpm, so with modern bass music now, it made sense to refer back to these early styles.

BWS) Education! What inspired you to create this style of music? and who are some other producers that you would consider your peers in 140 Jungle?

Arc88) Well I’ve always loved Jungle and I’ve heard a lot of Hardcore so as soon as people were feeling it, I thought there’s no reason to not rep it fully.I haven’t heard many other producers go for this sound apart from the obvious being Skream and Rusko… But people doing it proper underground still are: Myself , Benton , Unitz, Dismantle, Taiki and Nulight and I rate this guy at the moment called Dj Gold with a track called 45 War, its fire. (below)

BWS) Listening to your mix on Terrain Record’s website – it’s sick! Do you see, or perhaps, feel, a resurgence of Jungle in 2012, and will it be in the 140-150 bpm range rather than in the 170’s?

Arc88) Thanks man, and yeah I do big time. I can’t wait for how it’s gonna blow. It’s just a matter of time with the reoccurrence of acid house and stuff like that. We’re gonna go back in time to ’91 and it’ll be pure madness, and yeah I think it’ll stay at this tempo for a while because I can’t see people not playing dubstep in the near future and if it fits in with their set, they will play it.

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BWS) Hell yeah! With that said, is 140 Jungle well received when you play out?

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Arc88) Yeah man it seems to be, due to growing popularity, it seems to be getting dropped earlier on in sets which is always good, but at the moment if you have an entire half step set you kind of want to speed up towards the end and finish on a hype. Either way I’m just glad its getting played out…I would be interested to see some reactions to it overseas.

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BWS) Yeah we’ll try and link you something. Going back in time, what are some of your influences when creating this sound?

BWS) Do you see yourself sticking with 140 jungle in the future, and are there any releases or labels we can look forward to in 2012?

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Arc88) Yeah I’m gonna stick with this sound. I might move it in the direction of acid house, but thats as far as I see it going at the moment, there’s more freedom than people think with this genre so I wanna blow some minds before I think about doing anything else.

There it is, another great interview with Arc88! Take a minute to let it marinade, maybe read it over one more time, because Arc just dropped some real knowledge! His insights are much appreciated at BWS and we hope our readers are as stoked as us!

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We’ll be back with more future jungle posts, in the meantime, check out the aforementioned artists and Arc88’s mix on Terrain’s site.